Couple forced to leave home in caravan park after living there 'illegally' for 20 years

30.10.2022 - 19:57 / dailyrecord.co.uk

A couple have been forced to leave their home in a caravan park after living there 'illegally'. Doug Davis and Pam Donovan have lived in the Porthkerry leisure park and paid council tax on their standard van for 20 years.

The pair are among a group of residents who have been asked to leave to leave their homes after living there 'illegally' for two decades. WalesOnline reports the Welsh Government asked owners to leave the site and return to their main homes during the first Covid lockdown in 2020.

It was only then they realised around 40 people had been living on the site for 10 months a year in caravans only permitted for use permanently after they had sold their first homes.

The caravan site is now under the new ownership of Vale Holiday Parks who took it over this year on the provision that former owner Phil Edwards would end the permanent living issue. In the UK it is illegal to live on a holiday park in a caravan permanently without a primary residence elsewhere.

The temporary home should be used for recreation and holiday use only and does not require council tax payment.

Doug, 73, and Pam, 77, are part of a small group of people who left in June after coming to an out of court settlement with Mr Edwards costing tens of thousands of pounds. But they insist say they were unaware they were living on the park illegally.

The couple say they paid £120 a month in council tax each year to the Vale of Glamorgan Council, which showed they were living on the park permanently. All their payments to the council showed they were living there for ten months of the year, and were never told what they were doing was wrong.

Vale of Glamorgan Council would not comment on the matter. Doug said: “In 2003 Pam and I split from our